Third Day Churches, Inc.
P.O. Box 7531
San Diego CA 92167info@thirddaychurches.com
You have complete freedom to reproduce anything posted on this site for the continuation of the conversation concerning "doing church differently in the 21st century."

You may also subscribe to the free monthly newsletter at the bottom of this page.

All donations and gifts to Third Day Churches are extremely appreciated as they help us to resource and release this "permissional" message to the nations.

Please use the PayPal button provided below or mail your gift to the
address above. You will receive a 501(c)3 non-profit tax receipt for
your giving.

Give
me a mop . . .someone's about to spill some wine. Not intentionally,
mind you. His church is "transitioning" again. This time into a network
of house churches. It's the next thing. The new model. Latest trend. He
says. And some people are going to leave and not come back. Consider it
collateral damage. A sacrifice. The price you pay for the change. For
the next step.

A decision towards progress that is too much, too soon, too hard, too
costly. The straw that breaks the camel's back. The choice that pleases
some and sends others away. People leave the church as turtles or
skunks. This is what Brother Thomas Wolf told me. Turtles crawl quietly
out the back door, without bringing attention to the protest of their
silent withdrawal. Skunks leave at the front, where everyone can see
them, where they can let everyone know how badly they will be missed,
how they should have been listened to. They leave a smell behind that
lasts a lifetime. A stinky reminder of the decision that divided.

And the Sanctuary of the Wineskin sees the light of day. Opens to the
elements. Wine spills. Through the cracks. Runs in the streets like
blood, searching for a new home. Is God happy?

Despite the vocal crowd who worship at the Cult of the New, Jesus is
not infatuated with new wineskins. He likes both. But He is a
connoisseur of vintage wine. Mature wine. Wine that has sat under time,
ripened, grown, perfected under the conditions. Wine like this is
achieved only by permitting the new containers and preserving the old
ones. Let the old wineskins be preserved. If you squirt fresh wine into
them, they will burst. Spill. Jesus doesn't like spillage. Jesus likes
mature wine. So we need wineskins also. Old wine in the old wineskins.
New wine in the new wineskins. Whatever. Whatever keeps it. Contains
it. Preserves it. Gives it room to move and expand. Grow into what it
is destined to be and securing it from disease. Both. Freedom and
safety. Creativity and security. Bubbly and still. The heights of
exploding taste and the depths of softened character. Flavor and body.
Cherries and oak. Cheekiness and gracefulness. The wabi and the sabi.
The vigor of youth and the wisdom of age. Both, says Jesus. Both. Both
will be preserved.

But here is the challenge: To allow the new without threatening the
old. To preserve the old without hindering the new. Those without
wisdom choose one but not both. And the result is skunks and turtles.

I visited a House Church in the early 90's. It was run by skunks. A
group of disgruntles whose happiness came from the fact they met on
Thursday and not Sunday. In a living room and not a sanctuary. On a
sofa and not a pew. They were like kids staying away from school,
hiding out, proud of their boldness to leave. And yet in all their
freedom they managed only to move the church service from a building to
a house. Not much else had changed. Only the location. They had the
smirks of naughty boys on their faces. They were a church service on
the run. An escaped meeting captured by a living room. One that built
its identity from rebellion, defined themselves by what they were not.
This was the Revenge of the Skunks. I didn't go back to that church.
But I have been hanging out with turtles.

"They're not organized" insists the Owner in the movie "Chicken Run".
But she is wrong. The chickens have been cooped up long enough. They
build a plane and fly over the fence. To a new world. An island. To set
up a new existence away from tyranny. To become Free Range Chickens.
Free Range Turtles, on the other hand, left quietly and by themselves.
No machinery. No noises. Just a quiet withdrawal. A velvet revolution.
Pilgrimage. A solitary exodus. Their tithes first and then their
attendance.

Their protest was in their feet. They choose not to come back but still
kept up relationships with those who stayed. Lest they be like the
skunks.

But on their journey outside the institution, some of them discovered
each other. Ate meals with each other. Prayed with each other. More
often. More regular. Sometimes weekly. Those with gifts gave them.
Those with abilities used them. Those with leadership led. Those with
wisdom taught. Those who liked the way things were going told others.
New churches emerged in places where Turtles lived. This was now the
Time of The Turtles. Neighbors and friends got caught up. Church people
thought it peculiar. New believers thought it quite normal. The kind of
thing they would do if they had to make a church. Why not in a home? A
coffee shop? Wherever people live? Isn't that how the first church did
it in the Bible?

These were another group. Not skunks or turtles. Another. Butterflies,
perhaps. No rebellion. No scars. No issues with ecclesiastical
entities. Just people who liked to live with each other in each others
context. Environments with wallpaper and photos and TV magazines. Lives
located somewhere. Homes where people live and children pick their
noses and dogs annoy. Real people who want to see deeply into each
other's lives. To delight in the beauty. To heal what is broken. To be
healed. Touched. Appreciated but not used. Perhaps these people are the
third wave. People who church together without contrasting. Part of a
church without an address. A movement without a label . For they do not
always call what they do "house church". Sometimes there is no house.
Even "home church" does not contain their experience of God and each
other in this covenanted journey.

Maybe it is just church?

But back to the Pastor-man who is about to rupture his church. He has
probably heard the current criticisms about the house church movement.
“No leadership,” they say. “Prone to heresy,” they say. “An incubator
for cults. They don't last. No leadership.” They say.

They say wrong! Tyranny thrives in a vacuum of passivity. Finds its
voice inside an intimidated silence. It cannot live under the lively
chatter of dinner-table conversation. Dictators cannot bully themselves
to the front when leadership is valued by character instead of rank,
and is distributed out to the right people for the right moment. Like
ducks flying in formation, until the change, when another duck takes
the lead for the present direction. Ducks have leadership. Just not the
One Leader who leads all the time. And for every thing. And every
direction. My pastor friend has the answers for the wrong complaints.
He should listen to what is really wrong with the House Church
movement. From people within it. From those road-testing the new
models. Kicking the tires. He should listen to me. Because I have some
gripes about the House church movement. I need to vent them. And he
needs to hear them. Here they are:

My Gripes About House Church

First and foremost, house churches have no sex appeal. There is nothing
to look at. No big event. No climactic happening that makes people snap
pictures. Except people crying on each other. Hugging on each other.
Although some people would say that those personal victories ARE the
story. Wolfgang Simson said that to me last month. I remember the good
old days of church planting the old fashioned way. The glory days of
toys and more toys. Picking out mega-wattage sound systems. Shopping
for electronics. Designing kick-butt graphics for the invitation.
Discovering the building. Raising the money. The gut-twisting suspense
of Opening Service. The relief of the big crowd that came. Those
lovely, dear people that came. God bless 'em, everyone! And then the
disappointment of the smaller crowd the following week. And the week
after. And the week after that. The grief of losing steam. The guilt of
swiping people from other churches to replace those horrible, spiteful
deserters who came the first week to see the big fuss and then left
forever. Stood us up. Not caring for our feelings. Or our budget. And
after all we did for them . . . OK. Maybe the memories are not all
fond. But I do miss the hormone-triggering excitement of pulling off a
big service. And then on the other hand, if I am really honest with
myself, some house church people are beginning to host large city-wide
celebrations and be more involved in the week long festivals. In fact I
have been to some really good ones.

All right. My first gripe is not going the way I wanted it to. But the
following gripes are actual real-life insufficiencies that need to be
addressed if house church spokespeople are to offer a viable
alternative to pastors leaving the Pyramids Of Egypt for The Good Land
Flowing With Milk And Coffee.

1. Orientation is backwards.

The focus needs to change from "Our
House" to "Their House" Much of the present house church movement is
still an attempt to contain and control the meetings in their own camp,
in this case OUR HOUSE. The full gains that are available will not be
realized until we can begin to let the movement flow into THEIR HOUSES.
The church in Lydia's house was just that - in Lydia's house. Matthew's
party was in Matthew's house. Not the more convenient house of Simon
Peter's mother-in-law. And don't tell me it was her stomach complaints
that kept them away. It was strategy, not dysentery, that led them to
Matthew's house. Jesus told his missionaries to put peace on THEIR
(those other people, the ones they were sent to) HOUSE, enter their
house, live in their house, eat in their house, heal someone or
something in their house. Right there is the base of a new church and
it is in THEIR house. Think of the benefits.

Financial, because if the party is in their house then they pay for it.
Security, because if the party is in their house then they will
guarantee every one is safe. Culture, because the friends of the host
already appreciate the culture of their style of music and culture so
there is no culture barrier Convenience, because they already have that
house. Etc. I could go on. I could also say that this principle needs
to be applied on the civic level as well as the domestic level. That
the city offers a gift to those who receive it.

2. Communication is misleading.

The label needs to change from
house church to something that better describes it. The house church
network in Prague started 6 months ago. People meet in many different
venues but none meet in a house. People there cannot afford a house.
"Home church" is better but they don't always meet in homes. Clubs?
Yes. Dunkin' Donuts? Yes. Apartments? Sometimes. Neil Cole called them
Simple Churches. I like that. Organic Church. Micro church. . . More
work needs to be done here.

And what about the rapid movement of monastic structures in the
evangelical church in UK and USA? These intentional residential
communities are more house-based than the house churches and yet we
don't call them house churches. Do we include them under the umbrella
term or allow them to define themselves under a whole new ecclesiastic
framework?

Another spanner in the works. I visited a "traditional" church in
Minneapolis called Solomon's Porch. 200 people meet in a large loungy
space with couches, carpets, and sprawling kids. Their service is more
housechurch-like than some house churches. What is wrong with this
picture? Probably the words being used to describe it.

Hey, look at me, I'm griping.

3. Authentication has not yet arrived.

House churches are not recognized by the mainstream. "They are not real
churches", a well-known American pastor told me. He was basing his
judgment on the old way of valuation, the "Cold War" mindset Thomas
Friedman called it, where people value weight, size and longevity. In
the information age, people value things by "Speed". Bill Gates said it
was "Velocity". If this is correct, then house churches make a lot of
sense. And if 9-11 has moved us out of the Information Age and into the
Security Age, then house churches make even more sense. Time for a
little Rodney Dangerfield Respect to flow towards house church.

In the meantime, don't expect authentication from the mainstream. The
house church movement is basically overlooked and downgraded.
Denominational executives are threatened by the idea of housewives
starting churches in their own homes rather than their trained
professionals in the buildings that were designed for this purpose.

Yes, there are exceptions. The Baptist General Convention of
Texas, for example, when they discovered that a house church network in
their own backyard had grown into 250 churches within 6 years, decided
to take what they had learned and release it all over Latin America.
Fantastic. But the mainstream American church is either not ready or
not that interested at the moment. "Call back later when you start some
real churches." Yeah. I'm really griping now. Stand back. I have some
more.

4. A decent support structure is years away.

House churches are the cookie dough of the new ecclesiology. They are
tasty and soft and very tempting. But they have not yet hardened into
something permanent. We might be 5 years away from seeing a complete
ecosystem of organic ministries that work together to enable a healthy,
reproducing, movement of house churches. The movement in USA and Europe
is not ready for franchising or exporting, It is not looking for
entrepreneurs to multiply it but rather for pioneers to beta test it.
For engineers who can tinker with it while it is moving. To make it
workable and efficient. To get the bugs out of the system. To see what
missing elements need to be included.

Perhaps God is not allowing recognition from the mainstream so that
there can be a window of time to create the prototypes away from the
spotlight. If this is correct, someone needs to get busy working on a
decent support system. There is not a whole lot of support for the
movement right now. Not enough, perhaps, for most pastors to seriously
consider a leap of faith into a new and way-more-organic paradigm. A
few good books have appeared. Some helpful conferences started up in
2001. The launch of House 2 House magazine is a good start. But the
house church movement in Western countries is still a few tuna
casseroles short of the potluck.

The
five-fold ministry teams are not yet in place. City-wide gatherings are
still in the idea phase. The apostles and prophets are still learning
how to put up with each other, let alone minister together. Traveling
teams are more novelty than staple. The heroes of house church planting
are somewhere in Asia.

What about resources from the mainstream church? Sorry. Wrong number.
Their conference speakers have not written any books on how to ignite
house church movements of the Spirit. Seminaries are not training
students to plant house churches. Churches train their youth to "find"
a church when they leave for college rather than "start" a church,
since the existing structure is too complex for students to replicate.
There is also a tragic separation between traditional church and house
church. Which leads to my last gripe.

5. Integration is not a commonly held value.

House Church Utopia is still painted as being pure and
contaminent-free. As if you leave one model of church and adopt another
with no reference to what you came out of. The truth is that there is
compromise. There are house church people that miss the worship service
so much that they create one.

There are people that go back monthly to visit friends. There are house
churches that are more structured than some "traditional" churches.
There are large churches that have house churches and large worship
services inside their structure and they are very happy with it. This
is not a case of Mac OS versus Windows. It is not always either/or. It
is more of a progressive evolution. And fish with legs are a reality of
this new movement.

Backwash happens. And its OK. If we don't allow more fluidity into
what we promote as house church, then a whooooole lot of wine is gonna
get spilled as pastors move their churches towards Housopia and
discover along the way that 100% Organic certification is just not
attainable.

Somebody, somewhere, needs to give people a little slack. Some space to
be pluralistic. Someone needs to integrate the new history and the new
structure with the previous generation of churches. To stand on their
shoulders rather than slap their cheeks. The Holy Spirit utilized the
old-school Festival of Pentecost to kick off something new. The
disciples launched out from the Temple. Paul started in synagogues. Why
can't the house church leaders be players in the wider picture of what
God is doing among the old AND new wineskins?

OK. Thanks for letting me vent. Final thoughts? Lets all just get
along. Lets be honest about where we are in this transition. Lets not
spill any wine. Lets not spoil the fun of pastors surfing the previous
wave. Lets preserve the old wineskins and birth the new ones. Lets
watch the return of the Turtles. Lets work towards House Church 1.2. Or
2.0. Or 3.5 And then I can stop griping.

House Church: What's Cool?Seating - comfortableBathroom Proximity - always closeMusic - if its a multi-room partyNo sermon - teaching is interactiveDIY Potential - anyone can do itSize - small is intimateCuisine - bring on the love feastFreedom of Movement - room-floating encouragedSecurity - less likely a bomb targetSpeed - it could happen tonight

House Church: What's Lame?Seating - no back pew to hide onBathroom Proximity - everyone noticesMusic - if its an attempt at cum-by-yaNo sermon - if you're are a preacherDIY Potential - if you want to be a paid professionalSize - small is bad for babe-scoutingCuisine - No more potlucks in the church hallFreedom of Movement - expect to be interrupted by the dogSecurity - who took my CD's?Speed - it could happen tonight in your house